When McLaren presented its flexible front wing concept in 2024 and it was ultimately accepted by the FIA with no more stringent deformation tests coming for 2025, it was clear that the rest of the Formula 1 world was going to have to follow suit. example in adopting this technology, including Haas F1.
Red Bull Racing and Ferrari have already announced such works for their F1 cars this season, and Haas F1 team principal Ayao Komatsu has confirmed that the VF-25 will also be eligible.
“Naturally, a front wing must be designed with a certain level of tolerance, but in 2024 debate has raged over how much tolerance to allow, as well as how to effectively measure a wing's ability to deform ,” comments the Japanese.
“We can't ignore it when it's such an important performance differentiator. We're doing our best to have this in 2025 as quickly as possible.”
It is likely that Haas would have preferred to get a head start on the development of the flexible wing as early as 2024, but Komatsu admits that “It was impossible because we had to adjust things to ensure that our developments were always at a minimum level of efficiency in terms of correlation.”
“But once the correlation problem was well resolved, we understood the basics of these fins, and once improved, we will be able to adopt them on our car in the way we anticipated.”
-“It also gives confidence to people, who say, 'OK, this is the right analysis, this is the right methodology. If you follow this method, we can find a good solution, and then we can scale the process.'”
“So yes, step by step, it will happen on our car.”
